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U.S. cases of Legionnaire's disease increased from 1,110 in 2000 to 3,522 in 2009, according to the CDC. The findings may be attributed to increases in the number of seniors and others who are vulnerable to infection, researchers wrote in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

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U.S. cases of Legionnaire's disease increased from 1,110 in 2000 to 3,522 in 2009, according to the CDC. The findings may be attributed to increases in the number of seniors and others who are vulnerable to infection, researchers wrote in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

A Loma Linda University study that followed elderly adults over 29 years found those who had a higher BMI had a shorter life expectancy than those at normal weight. The study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society contradicts earlier research that said overweight elderly lived longer than those who were thinner, and researchers said the previous research did not account for weight changes over a long enough period of time.

The CDC expects about 9 million more flu shots to be produced for the coming flu season than were made for the past season, for a total of 166 million. The agency noted that the percentage of pregnant women who had flu shots was steady at 49%, while the percentage of health care workers who had been immunized increased to 63.5% last flu season from 62% the season before that, but that figure remains far from the goal of immunizing 90% of health care workers by 2020.

Medicare Part D beneficiaries in the coverage gap who pay 100% of prescription costs are twice as likely to stop taking their medications as they are to switch to more affordable drugs, researchers at Harvard University, Brigham and Women's Hospital and CVS Caremark found. "Instead of incentivizing beneficiaries to switch to lower-priced or generic drugs, entry into the coverage gap resulted in an abrupt discontinuation of or reduced adherence to drugs among elderly Medicare beneficiaries," the study authors wrote.